Problem with lintels on house?

I’ve owned a house some 80 years old, with a lime type mortar which is much weaker than most mortars used nowadays and not a sign of what’s happening at your end, plus the lintels of the day where of an inferior quality and I should know being a carpenter.

I have to say one thing. I was very disturbed by the first picture and it wasn't the damage you speak of which disturbed me, it was some of the mortar joints just under the damage. Up to an inch, when gauging the joints they should be 3/8 to 1/2 mostly.

One of the jobs of a carpenter on a brick or brick veneer construction is to make a story rod http://www.answers.com/topic/story-rod. This rod would be use as stated on that site but what it didn't state was that on a rod a carpenter marks /setout all the widows and door openings and then sets out all the brick work so they're evenly spaced out in between openings, so you don't get that rubbish like what's shown in the first picture.

Example: if from the corner of the building to the first window opening the bricks work better with 3/8 joint, if I moved the opening an inch or so to suit, well that's how you mark the rod and from that window to the next opening the joints work out better being 7/16 that's what the joints should be on the rod for that section of wall. Some might say this is a bricklayers job, like I didn't while at building school, which the teacher replied " If you let a bricklayer setout on your job you're an idiot"

To me that's badly built, it could easily be badly built in other places and this poor construction could be the main reason why you're getting that damage over the opening, someone who knows how to build wouldn't let that happen, how many other places where you can see is built so poorly should be on the fore front of your mind.

Caveat emptor is latin for, let the buyer beware

There are two answers to this question. The ones you have had and the one that will save you a lot of money. Your surveyor has said the lintels need replacing. SO get a builder or two round and ask them for written quotes to replace the lintels. It will be several hundred pounds each one I think. Tell the vendors that you will buy the house but for that much less than the previously agreed price.

Move in, get the joints or even the whole wall repointed and have a party with the money you have saved.

Seriously you may think this is a bit underhand, but it is a buyer's market and you have the ace of spades if you are a willing buyer.

That is nothing mate - honest - 1 hours work that you can do yourself with a little sand and cement.

Lintles corroding - BULLSHITE - they are coated and treated and very rarely corrode to an extent that they need to be removed and replaced.

Expansion of the metal in heat - that I can accept.

No problems with those little bits you have - dig it out and put mortar in - less than an hour.

your house is twenty years old its still a baby lintels corroding bulls1t the house is or has settled if theres grind the joints out and re-point, that's it an hours job

I ditto Peter W's answer, and I also voted for his answer.

jamand is spot on